Pippin or Merry: Who is better?
 

The best hobbits in the whole book. But which is your favorite? There must be a reason why. I vote Pippin. He is the curious one.

Pippin. But I'm only biased because he was the one who served Denethor. <P>Okay, so out of bias, I do actually prefer Pippin. He's curious and idiotic, and probably the hobbit I would most like to spend time with.

Pippin! I like Merry a lot too, of course, but Pippin is my favorite. He's very curious, like me . Although, I do think in the movie they make him seem a little too foolish. In the books, he was more careless, I think, than foolish. But still, I like the Pippin in the movie a lot, too. I love the scene where he and Merry are singing in the Green Dragon! <BR>Arwen

I really want to say Merry just to be different, but I have to say Pippin as well. If his nose were a little shorter he'd be on the same level as the rest of them (well, Frodo anyway) but I love them all near enough equally, I wouldn't usually proclaim favourites but Pippin just seems more fun loving than the others, like myself (I hope).

Both actors are doing a superb job in their roles, but I have to say that Billy Boyd as Pippin really brings their duo to life on screen. When reading the books, I had no favorite between the two, and still don't, but I would have to say that honestly I enjoy Pippin's (Billy Boyd's) lines in the movie a tad more. <P>Meela, I think you are being a bit harsh in calling Pippin an idiot.

Merry (do I have to say why?) . Maybe cos he in some ways is a bit like myself - always nice to recognize yourself in someone else

Pippin. (What a surprise...)<P>Both Merry and Pippin are more rounded and deeper in the books (of course) and Merry comes across a little more noticable as his own character in the books, I think. To be fair to movie-Merry, most of my favorite Pippin/Merry material from the books is from RotK or parts of TTT that didn't make it into the movie but still might be in the Rotk-movie. So I may like movie-Merry better and better after the last installment. After all, the slaying of the Witch-King and insuing injury has got to be good for some nice face time for the ol' boy!<P>There are lots of reasons why Pippin's my favorite, but I'd have to say the best way to sum it all up is when his spirit laughs a little before he passes out under the troll, thinking he's dying. That just describes his character perfectly. I hope they don't gloss over his side of the story in RotK <I>too</I> much (at least play up the troll-squashing, please! I know PJ and Co can do a great death/almost death scene, and I want to see it for Pip!)<P>Pippin is no idiot, fie upon anyone who calls him one! I do enjoy the more clownish Pippin in the movies, to a certain extent, but sometimes the script was just unfair. In the book when Gandalf snaps at him it always seemed more grouchiness on Gandalf's part, in the movie Pippin often deserves it. But I can live with that, since they have known enough to let him mature as time goes on instead of stubbornly sticking to him as the butt-end of all the jokes. I love the Scottish accent. Even though Billy Boyd looks a bit too old for my mental image of Pippin from reading the books, he really brings to life the personality and mannerisms of the character.

There's no doubt a thread somewhere about this, but didn't Pippin actually die? i.e. Gimli 'made sure he was dead' when he pulled him out from under the orc, didn't he?<P>But for me, its got to be Merry. He has one of the most heartbreaking lines in lotr, "Are you going to bury me?" and then soon after Gandalf states (which ALWAYS gets me!) "He should have been borne in honour into this city". Reading it right now to check the words has left me with a tear in my eyes. I hope it's in the film.......<P>So, all in all, I'll go for Merry.

PS, for gandalf's line 'He should have been borne in honour into this city' to work, in the book, Gandalf has a 'vision' of what happens to the witch king. I'm not sure how jackson's going to convey this, if at all, so now I'm wondering if it WILL be in or not. If it's not, I'll be dissapointed.

Yes, I think they have their levels of deepness, like most people it just depends on the situation. But overall, Merry is my favorite. Just because he's a little more emotional, and kind of reminds me of myself. In some ways at least.Like how he feels the world is just a little big for him, and he doesn't fit in in the world of men. And how people are underesimating him, and he gets left behind a lot. I feel like this a lot because I am homeschooled and people leave me out of things a lot, and I just don't feel NORMAL. (In the book I'm writing, we get married)

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> but didn't Pippin actually die?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR> <BR>ARGH! DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T!!! <I>TRY</I> to read the books more carefully next time! What in Middle-earth's wrong with you?!?!<P>*ahem* But back to the topic.<P>My favorite is Pippin. Just because we seem to have the same sort of point of view and personality and whatnot. A lot of the things that Pippin says, in the books and the movies, are things that I would probably say in those situations. And he's just so cute! ^^<P>Abedithon le,<P>~*~Aranel~*~

Wow, for a movie discussion, this one got pretty serious.<P>All in all, I'd have to say I like Merry. Okay, my reason, though not as deep as other or as book orientated: Dom is cuter than Billy. Shallow? Strange? Or just teenager? A little of all three I'd have to say. <P>Pippin was a character in both book and movie, but in the movie Merry seemed more grounded. Pip was just plain fun! But I'd still have to for Merry, Dom has a cuter smile <P>AL

I would have to say Pippin, because he is just a brilliant, brilliant character. But I do truly love both. It is very hard to choose one over the other, but it is just that Pippin is a much more memorable character for me. His scenes in Gondor with Denethor and Bergil are actually some of my favorites, because it shows so many parts of his personality, and how he deals with the battles, the coming and goings of the soldiers and Gandalf, and how he deals with difficult situations. While in Mitas Tirith he kind of takes the place of the reader, observing, and doing what a regular person would do if they were in an extraordinary situation like that one.

I already posted that I like Pippin better, but I wanted to add one more thing. I do <B>love</B> Merry's line in the RotK preview 'We shall see the Shire again.' Just the way he says it is so wonderful! The hope that's there... it just stirs up so much emotion in me! He says it with such hope and feeling... I have to watch that line over and over, and repeat it to myself just because I love it so much!

I can never decide when these type of questions are asked!<P>One way of putting it is that I see a lot of Pippin in myself, but I think that I'd get along better with Merry. At a first glance, the two hobbits seem pretty similar, but Pippin is somewhat sillier (right word?) than Merry. He puts his foot in it sometimes (throwing the stone down the well is a good example) and does things on impulse. You get the feeling that he doesn't think before he acts or speaks, whereas I feel that Merry is more thoughtful in that way. He tells jokes and is just as lighthearted as Pippin (for instance, when he asks Farmer Maggot if he found Frodo and co 'in his duckpond') but is perhaps more intelligent? When you seperate them, like in the Return of the King, they become more diverse characters, and more sides to them are shown.<P>I'd say that Pippin is the more entertaining of the two, but that's not to say that Merry is at all boring. He has a different sort of endearing quality. Maybe he's slightly more enigmatic than Pippin? I find that it can be easier to describe Pippin's personality than describing Merry's. <P>I hope that my little ramble made sense. But now I think that I should answer your question. After thinking hard for a while, I say Merry.

I vote Merry. He is the more intelligent of the two. For some reason, he also amuses me more. Also, though this is mostly irrelevant, he served Rohan, which I find to be a more interesting country than Gondor.

Sapphire_Flame,<P>Re your over-reaction <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> ARGH! DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T DON'T!!! TRY to read the books more carefully next time! What in Middle-earth's wrong with you?!?! <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I admit I’ve only read LOTR about a dozen times in my 35 years, but I think I understand the books quite well.<P>Let me explain the situation again, and let’s see if you can understand…..<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>There's no doubt a thread somewhere about this, but didn't Pippin actually die? i.e. Gimli 'made sure he was dead' when he pulled him out from under the orc, didn't he?<BR><HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>What I mean is this.<P>ROTK, The Black Gate Opens<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>For one moment more Pippin's thought hovered. 'Bilbo!' it said. 'But no! That came in his tale, long long ago. This is my tale, and it is ended now. Good-bye!' <B>And his thought fled far away and his eyes saw no more. </B> <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>When you first read the book (if you’ve read it more than once), didn’t you think Pippin was dead? I did, and cried my eyes out.<P>ROTK, The Field of Cormallen<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> ‘And not only Sam and Frodo here’, said Gimli, ‘but you too, Pippin. I love you, if only because of the pains you have cost me, which I shall never forget. Nor shall I forget finding you on the hill of the last battle. But for Gimli the Dwarf you would have been lost then. But at least I know now the look of a hobbit's foot, though it be all that can be seen under a heap of bodies. And when I heaved that great carcass off you, <B>I made sure you were dead</B>. I could have torn out my beard. And it is only a day yet since you were first up and abroad again. To bed now you go. And so shall I.'<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Can you see what I’m trying to say? That maybe Pippin DID die, but was somehow (maybe through the grace of the Valar etc) brought back to life? Indeed, even Sam asks the question of Gandalf on the field of Cormallen<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> ‘Is everything sad going to come untrue? What's happened to the world?' <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>This is why I asked if anyone had raised this point beforehand in a thread.

I actually can't ever decide which I like more (my favorite hobbit is Sam, so I don't have any mixed-favorite issues or anything). I'm inclined to say Pippin, though, just because he's so cute. And I don't really mean physical cuteness, more of the way he acts and all that, and it's great how he matures and everything. As to him dying, I always took it to mean that Gimli <I>thought</I> he was dead. You see, it's a difference between modern American English and somewhat older British English (and LOTR just has that rather formal style, anyway). In American English, "made sure you were dead" would mean something along the lines of "was absolutely certain that you were dead" or "checked and discovered that you were dead", whereas in the formal British English style of LOTR, "made sure you were dead" would mean something more along the lines of: Gimli assumed that he was dead (maybe he coudn't feel a pulse or whatnot), but not that he actually was.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> When you first read the book (if you’ve read it more than once), didn’t you think Pippin was dead? I did, and cried my eyes out.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I did the exact same thing!! I thought he was dead, and cried my eyes out!! I really cried a lot when it seemed like Frodo was dead, too, but I kept wondering if maybe he wasn't really dead. But I just <I>knew</I> Pippin was dead! I was quite relieved to find out he wasn't. <BR>Arwen

I prefer the Merry in the film because PJ portrayed Pippin as the Village Idiot, which he is not at all in the book. Sigh...

I prefer Merry in the books and Pippin in the movies! <BR>In the books I think Pippin is to... oh I don't know how to say it in english... there's no good word for it. Anyways in the movies he's more fun. I like it.

When I read the scene when Pippin was squashed under the troll in the books I was very uncertain. I read it over again, and whilst I was reading the other parts of the book I was still worried that he was dead. I kept saying to myself, 'no, he can't be gone, Tolkien wouldn't kill him, would he??' <BR>I was very glad to see him again at the field of Cormallen!

Oh, this is hard! Based on the book characters, I like Merry better because he was his own hobbit and, of course, got to slay the Witch King with Éowyn. His lines at the end of that are so sad but in a lovely way, as I believe has been said. In the films he seemed to get a bit lost underneath the other characters and didn't have many either semi-funny or memorable lines (all that comes to mind is 'there won't be a Shire, Pippin' and 'I think I've broken something'). Most of what he said felt superflulous and a lot of his TTT dialogue was a bit Hollywood.<P>Pippin, on the other hand, had better movie lines but I was always in two minds about the book Pippin. Perhaps it's just because I'm a serious person by nature, but I never really seemed to connect with him the way I did with some of the other characters. He always struck me as slightly too frivolous up until near the end. But for humour he's virtually unchallenged in the whole novel.<P>All I can hope for these two little hobbits is that they get better parts in RotK than they did in TTT. It's no more than they deserve and they're such great characters it would be a crime to rob them of some brilliant lines and scenes.

Merry and Pippen mmmm.... hard choise. I think I like Pippen better in the movie but Merry better in the book...

Orlando's Top Fangirl: How could you embarrass me like that? You just had to pick that name, didn't you? But, I'm glad I convinced you to come here! <P>You already know, I love Pippin! He just seems so innocent. And he looks really good in Gondorian armour. <P>Edit: Maybe I shouldn't admit that I know you...Oh, well.<p>[ November 06, 2003: Message edited by: Elennar Starfire ]

Pippin's lines in the movie fill me with side-splitting laughter, he also has those funny facial expressions that does not require any lines or comments. But i do love Merry! I like him more in the book than in the movies, but still, i must say Merry

Personally I think that Pippin is the better of the two, however I think that both of them personify the spirit of a hobbit.

Well, seeing how my favorite character of all is Merry...I say Merry.<BR>I do really like Pippin also, yet there is something about Merry that draws me to him. Most of my liking of Merry comes from the book, especailly in Rotk. Not only is he a funny little Hobbit and has that innocence about him, he is also intellegent, and thats something that Pippin lacks just a bit. I think more people(those who havn't read the books) will appreciate Merry more once Rotk comes out.

I vote for Merry. He just seems to be a better character and I've always preferred Rohan to Gondor anyway.

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>Not only is he a funny little Hobbit and has that innocence about him, he is also intellegent, and thats something that Pippin lacks just a bit.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I always notice that people attribute more intelligence to Merry; what I think Merry has is more common sense and a deeper knowledge of the land. He is more connected to the Earth than Pippin, who seems to float on a level just above it. (Really! If I haven't recommended the Pippin's Sixth Sense thread enough, it isn't done purposely!) Pippin seems to connect to the flow of supernormal events; he is, in many cases the cause of them. He is a nexus, but he is also an innocent. I think if Pippin became TOO grounded, he would lose something. <P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR>There are lots of reasons why Pippin's my favorite, but I'd have to say the best way to sum it all up is when his spirit laughs a little before he passes out under the troll, thinking he's dying. That just describes his character perfectly.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>Right on, <B>Diamond</B>! He is the embodiment of the resilient spirit of the entire race of Hobbits! I was extremely worried that Tolkien had killed Pippin at this point too, but somehow, Pippin's last thoughts lightened the blow for me, like it was, indeed, a story, to be laughed at a little and not taken so gravely seriously. A lesson for life, and I am so glad Pippin got to grow up without losing this very important character trait! So many people lose their ability to laugh at things, even the big things, when they are confronted with the hazards of coming of age. <P>I can't say anyone will be surprised at my choice of Pippin (the one character from LOTR I would marry in a heartbeat!), but I can say one thing about Merry and the observations that some here have made about his independence. I thought, when Merry and Pippin were separated, that Merry reacted more in the dependent way; he seemed more worried about being left behind, about losing Pippin and he latched onto Theoden in a very emotional way. I found him to be more dependent and less able to get on emotionally on his own than Pippin was. Pippin's main problem was overcoming his fears and finding someone worthy of love and sacrifice--Beregond, Faramir--this difference, I think arises to a large extent, because of the differences between Theoden and Denethor. There is no way Pippin could have cultivated a relationship like Merry's to Theoden with the VERY disturbed and despairing Denethor. But I do like how Pippin recognizes and rejects that path, while still sympathizing and understanding the madness that Denethor had fallen into. That, in itself, I think illustrates a major difference between Men and Hobbits.<P>Sorry, I went off on a tangent, didn't I? Well, anyway, you can tell I really like Pippin! <P>Cheers,<BR>Lyta

Merry. He was the one who helped slay the Witch King. He also longed to help in any way he could.

Pippin, because he's just so adorable. His accent is so cool.

<B>I like Pippin better in the movies, but Merry better in the books</B><P>See Jack, I knew you would say something like that.<BR>I personally like Merry better than Pippin(not to say I don't like Pip)because he acts a little more serious(yeah I'm talking about the books)than Pippin is.<BR>Also, Pip is a but younger than Merry, and he acts upon impulses which are harder for him to control because he is younger(note him being the youngest member of the Fellowship)<P>So if any of you guys think Pippin is an idiot, lay off.

Meriadoc Brandybuck is far better than Peregrin Took I must say he is more serious and stronger

I have to say I like them both equally...they both play off each other, have some of the greatest lines in the books and give a little of comic relief. Cheers to both Merry and Pippin!! :D

Kalimac was much better. He had the common sense and the guts of the two.

For me Merry and Pip are like moods,Sometimes I like Pip,because he's the comic relief other times it's Merry because he is brave and loyal.Pippin because he is so naive,Merry for being a little more world weary,And of course I love them both when they drink and sing!

I vote Pippin. He's more intelligent and knowledgable in the book than in the movies.

Haha, I'm with you on that as far as the movies go. Every once in a while you need some Meriadoc Common Sense to balance out the Peregrin Silliness. ("What about second breakfast?")

As far as the books go (which I know was not the question) I would probably side with Merry, mostly because I (personally) prefer tragic figures, and he's a little more tragic than Pippin. He knows that he's following a lost cause, pledging his allegiance to Theoden, but he does it anyway in support of his friends.
Then of course, there's the fact that he gallavants with Dernhelm, who is just cool....

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Merry.
I just like him better.